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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621869">Help My Mind Shut Up</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairycat/pseuds/fairycat'>fairycat</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Descendants (Disney Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anxiety, Gender-Ambiguous Reader, Grounding methods, Other, Phone Call, Reader-Insert, school stress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:22:11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,445</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27621869</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairycat/pseuds/fairycat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't sleep, so you call your boyfriend for comfort and help.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Carlos de Vil/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Help My Mind Shut Up</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Jay, Ben, Rapunzel, and the reader's roommate are mentioned in this, but that's it on characters.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As you lay in bed, yawning, you stared at the ceiling of your dorm room. It wasn’t smooth in texture; it had small bumps and ridges like a landscape. Your eyes strained in the darkness to trace the lines. Some of them were neat waves. Sine and cosine waves. The sine of theta over cosine of theta equals tangent theta—</p><p>You had been falling asleep for a minute there, but now you were wide awake again. You rolled over and looked at the time on your phone. You squinted at the bright screen and read 2:15 A.M. How was that possible?</p><p>Across the room, your roommate slept soundly. You pouted. It wasn’t fair. You wanted to sleep but your mind wouldn’t shut up. You would gladly let Queen Rapunzel hit you in the head with her frying pan if it knocked you out. Maybe she could also sit down with you and review the reasons for Corona’s alliance with Arendelle—<i>augh! Shut up!</i></p><p>It wasn’t time to think about that. It was time to sleep, and it had been for a while. But you couldn’t.</p><p>You squinted at your phone again. You didn’t want to disturb your roommate’s slumber, but maybe you could talk to someone else. Yawning, you opened your contacts and tapped to call your boyfriend.</p><p>The phone rang thrice before you heard Carlos de Vil’s groggy, perplexed voice say your name on the other end.</p><p>“Hey.” You spoke softly so you wouldn’t wake your roommate.</p><p>“Hey.” Carlos’s voice was equally soft, probably so he wouldn’t wake up Jay. “Why are you calling so late? Is something wrong?”</p><p>The worry in your boyfriend’s voice brought tears to your eyes. Well, it was a combination of his worry and your stress. Ugh, the stress was enough that pretty much anything could’ve made you cry right then.</p><p>“I can’t get to sleep,” you said.</p><p>Carlos let that sit for a beat before replying. “Something’s upsetting you. Do you—<i>yawn</i>—want to talk about it?”</p><p>“Um. I guess I could?” You stayed on the call but returned your eyes to the ceiling. “I can’t stop thinking about schoolwork.”</p><p>“Mm,” Carlos hummed. “Any class in particular?”</p><p>“Mostly precalculus and history.”</p><p>“History of Auradon?”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“Do you still have homework to do?”</p><p>“No, I . . . I mean, I attempted all of it, but I’m pretty sure I got at least half my precalc homework wrong.”</p><p>“I can help you find a tutor in the morning.”</p><p>“Do you know someone who could tutor me?” you asked.</p><p>“I’ll be able to find someone,” Carlos said with a yawn. “Remember, I’m friends with the king of Auradon, and he knows a lot of people. I’ll find someone to help you.”</p><p>“Thanks, hon. That’s so sweet of you.”</p><p>“And you said HIstory of Auradon was bugging you, too?”</p><p>You sighed. “Yeah. There’s a unit test at the end of the week and I’m so not ready.”</p><p>“There are definitely people who can help you with that,” Carlos said. How he managed to sound so confident while also sounding sleepy, you couldn’t figure out.</p><p>“Thank you,” you said.</p><p>“Are you still feeling bad?” Carlos asked.</p><p>The lines on the ceiling turned into royal family trees. You squeezed your eyes shut to block them out. “Gah! Yes!”</p><p>“What can I do to help?”</p><p>“I don’t know,” you grumbled. “My mind won’t shut up.”</p><p>“Hmm.” Your boyfriend was silent on the other end, but you could hear the gears turning in his head. “We need to find something for you to focus on so your brain won’t be able to think of schoolwork.”</p><p>“What do I focus on, though?”</p><p>“Um . . . have you tried counting sheep?”</p><p>You laughed. “Oh, I tried. I can’t count normally anymore. I try to count, but my mind goes to pi over six, pi over three, pi over two, two pi over three—”</p><p>“Okay, okay,” Carlos said. “Let’s stay away from numbers. And lines. And curves. And . . . what is the test on Friday about?”</p><p>“Royal alliances,” you said with a groan.</p><p>“Then let’s stay away from royalty, too.”</p><p>“Hard to get away from around here,” you said.</p><p>Carlos laughed. “You’re right about that. On my first day in Auradon, every other person I met was royalty.”</p><p>You laughed. “I’d love to go far away, maybe second to the right and straight on till morning, if it meant I never had to look at royal lineages ever again.”</p><p>“Oh!” Carlos almost interrupted. “I have an idea! Tell me five things you can see right now.”</p><p>“Uh . . . it’s dark.”</p><p>“Oh, well, um.” You could picture the adorable sheepish look on his face. “Well, it’s not completely dark, is it? You can still see a few things? Maybe five things?”</p><p>You looked around the room. Your roommate’s bed appeared colorless in the dark, but you could see its outline. “Bed.”</p><p>Between the two beds, the moon shone through the window. “Window. Moon. Curtains. Five things?”</p><p>“Five things.” You could hear the smile in his voice.</p><p>“Um . . .” You looked at your desk. “Desk.”</p><p>“Good,” said Carlos. “Now what are four things you can touch right now?”</p><p>“Uh . . . phone. Bedspread. Pajamas. Um . . .” You switched your phone to your other hand so you could reach out to touch something, anything. The wire of the phone charger brushed against your fingers. “Phone charger.”</p><p>“That’s good.” He yawned. “Can you tell me three things you can hear?”</p><p>“Your voice,” you said, smiling. Carlos chuckled on the other end of the line. “Your laugh. And . . . um . . . oh! My voice.”</p><p>“Good job. What are two things you can smell?”</p><p>“Hmm.” You thought about it. You were so used to how your room smelled now, in contrast to the beginning of the school year, that you couldn’t smell it anymore. “Does my room count if I can’t actually smell it?”</p><p>“I don’t think so,” Carlos said gently. “Is there anything in the room that smells different?”</p><p>You inhaled deeply, trying to focus on your surroundings. You smelled . . . pencils? “Pencils,” you whispered. “I sharpened my pencils not too long before I went to bed.”</p><p>“All right. Anything else?”</p><p>You sniffed the room again. “There’s a faint smell of laundry detergent on my blanket,” you said.</p><p>“That’s your two things,” said Carlos. “One more: what’s one thing you can taste?”</p><p>“One thing I can taste,” you echoed. You opened your mouth to taste the air. Nothing. Wait. No. There was—</p><p>“There’s still a bit of garlic taste in the back of my mouth,” you said, trying not to giggle. “From dinner. I guess I didn’t get it all when I brushed my teeth.”</p><p>Carlos laughed. “Don’t you brush your tongue?” he teased.</p><p>“Shut up,” you said between laughs.</p><p>“Sounds like I’ve woken you up more,” Carlos said. “Sorry.”</p><p>“Maybe, but it’s okay.” You yawned. “Or maybe I’m not more awake?”</p><p>Your boyfriend let out a soft, warm chuckle. “Is your mind quieter now?”</p><p>“Yeah, but . . . I’m worried it’ll become noisy again. And what if I run out of things I see and hear and touch?”</p><p>“I’ve found it helpful to list other things,” Carlos said. “I would list, just to myself, all the dog breeds I can name.”</p><p>“I could probably only name five,” you admitted.</p><p>“It doesn’t have to be dog breeds,” he said. “It could be anything you know well that gets your mind focused on one thing. Cat breeds, moons of other planets, celebrities with blond hair, InstaRoyal models.”</p><p>You laughed and yawned again. “I might try cat breeds, at least at first.”</p><p>“That’s good. I hope you get to sleep soon, babe,” Carlos said in his gentle voice.</p><p>“Thank you, hon.”</p><p>“Good night. I love you.”</p><p>“Love you too.”</p><p>Your phone beeped, signaling the end of the call. You placed your phone back on your nightstand and returned your unfocused gaze to the ceiling.</p><p><i>Cat breeds,</i> Carlos’s voice echoed in your memory. You imagined cuddling with him on Evie’s couch, his arms encircling you as you listed off cat breeds.</p><p>Siamese. Persian. Burmese. Tonkinese. Oriental Shorthair. Oriental Longhair. Himalayan. Him a sittin’. Him a standin’. Oh, he a-comin’. Heheh. <em>Focus.</em> Cat breeds, cat breeds. Uh, Ragdoll? The rexes, the rexes. Cornish Rex. Devon Rex. British Shorthair. Russian Blue. The blue one from France, what was its name? Bordeaux? Or was that a type of candy? Maybe you would have candy tomorrow.</p><p>What were you thinking about?</p><p>Right. Cat breeds.</p><p>The swimming one, the swimming one—the Turkish Van. Persian. You already said that. Abyss . . . Abyssinian? Yeah. Sphinx. Wirehair. The ears, the ears ones. Scottish Fold. American Curl. Amer . . . American Shorthair. Norwegian Forest Cat. Maine C . . .</p><p>You had fallen asleep.</p>
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